Primordial Era
The Primordial Era is the name that scholars have given to the age before the Material Plane was widely inhabited by humanoid races and the gods were seated on their thrones, but after the gods were already created. The Verdant Age follows this period of time. Creation Myth The Beginning In the beginning, before the planes were created, there were simply primal forces. Order and Chaos, otherwise known as Entropy and Law. Later on these came to be known as Io and Tharzidun. Opposites though they were, their ebb and flow in the Void was a harmony that could create other forces. In this way, the forces of Time, Space, Power, Magic, Good, and Evil came into being. None of these were purely of Order or of Chaos, but all had some mix of the two. Each of these forces occupied a space in the void, but as they settled into their cosmic roles they came together and formed the first Planes of Existence. Each of these new nascent plane had its own characteristics, and were abstract things beyond mortal understanding. The planes were: Stasis (Time), Substance (Space), Turbulence (Power), Arcana (Magic), Serenity (Good), and Corruption (Evil). In their nascent forms these 'places' were chaotic and unruly, but the force of Order took them and distributed pieces of Time, Space, and Magic to the other planes. This caused each plane to start to take form. Chaos, in turn, introduced Power, Good, and Evil to the planes, creating entities out of these things to live and fight amongst themselves. The first generation of the Divines was created, along with elemental spirits, celestials, and fiends. Only the Divines had enough sentience to think and reason, and they were things of chaos, because what sows more disorder than personal choice? Understand that the creation of these things was what was natural for these forces, and that they do not have much in the way of consciousness. The Divines Born as beings that were neither celestial nor fiend, the Divines had three subcategories: the Givers, the Coveters, and the Creators. Not much is known of them, for none have survived to this era save two of the Creators - Primus and ______. Each of these groups represented different aspects of Order or Chaos, but with sentience and intent. The Givers created the first mortals, the Covetors created the first demons, and the Creators made the elementals, djinni, dragons, and other primal creatures. Before this point, celestials and fiends were simply creatures of good or evil that roamed and fought each other, without sentience. These creatures fought many wars between each other, mostly the Givers fighting the Covetors. Neither could best the other, and as the Creators constantly had their projects destroyed by the fighting, they set in motion the planes and placed a barrier of void between them. They also created the Astral Sea and the Ethereal Plane, as means for their creations to pass to and fro freely. Separated and bound to their realms, the Givers and Covetors made creatures to continue the fight in their stead, enabling them to travel across the planes. The Givers imbued themselves into their creations, giving their consciousness to empower their Celestial children. The Covetors made demons that could consume other creatures to gain strength, and their creations consumed each other and their masters. Some of the creators imbued their essence into their creatures, and others stayed to watch over their creations, either in material form or as deities, depending on their preference. Those that descended became the Great Old Ones, and the chosen races of these Creators were the Giants and the Dragons, neither wholly good nor evil. And thus it was that the Primordial era truly began - with all the elements in place that would later become the pantheons and planes that are known in the common era, though the world would have much changing to do before that point. The Divine War The warring might have been lessened had not mortals intervened. Each of the young races desired to see the world outside of the realm of Serenity, to explore the Astral Sea and the Plane of Substance, and to build kingdoms and cities where they could rule themselves, using the gods as examples. The gods could not dissuade them from this, and in the end they agreed to win the plane of Substance for mortalkind and make of it a place that their children could safely dwell in. So began the Divine War. The Celestials wished to secure a homeland for their nascent mortal races, while the Fiends wished to turn all planes into images of their ever-changing plane of Corruption. Both were impeded by the denizens of those planes (dragons, giants, and elementals). In the end, neither force was stronger than the other. Throughout the war, many beings rose to power on every side of the conflict. The Celestials and the Fiends were empowered by the worship and energy of their minions or children. In this way, the gods and the first elemental princes were born; those that were worshipped and adulated the most became the strongest and gained powers they had never before seen, each according to their own preferred domains. As the gods became more powerful, they divided Serenity into the Seven Heavens, demiplanes within the larger Plane, to suit their temperaments and desires. The Creation of Hell Powerful though these new gods were, they knew they could not secure the mortal realm until Corruption was contained further. The gods tasked Azriel, who was the chiefest general of the armies of Serenity, to drive back the forces of Corruption so that the gods together could seal it. For many years he fought, and as he and his armies battled the fiends they slowly became corrupted, resorting to crueler methods to gain the advantage. Azriel himself began to resent the gods for not aiding him in this task. Long had he been ambitious of having his own realm to rule over, to be as the other gods were. This desire became twisted too, and he began to desire mortal servants instead of subjects. Azriel hid this desires and intent well, but he could not hide the actions of his army. The gods, disturbed by the corruption and afraid of his power, brought him before their assembly and put him on trial, demanding that he and his army be cast from the heavens. Azriel argued that he had not broken the law, and had completed his task to the letter. His argument was effective, but even as the gods pondered how best to handle this, Azriel saw in their faces that he would never be crowned as one of their equals. Hiding his bitterness, he proposed a pact; the gods were to split the plane of Corruption in two, and Azriel and his armies were to reside in one half as jailers of Corruption, ensuring that the demons were held in check. In return, the gods would allow him to serve also as the jailer for wicked mortal souls, keeping them for eternity to do with and punish as he pleased. The gods found the terms agreeable, and balanced in their favor. However Azriel had not included in the pact any clause that would prevent his servants from "collecting their dues" nor prevent them from tempting mortals to doom. Unaware, the gods signed the Pact Primeval, and they took Corruption and separated it into Baator and the Abyss, with the wasteland of Hades between them. Azriel then named himself Asmodeus, Lord of Baator, and over the next years divided Baator into nine Hells, promoting his most favored captains to rule over the lesser Hells and demoting those who displeased him. He grew stronger, tempting more and more mortals to evil, and the gods soon realized their mistake, as now they had two enemies to fight instead of one. Yet they were magically bound to the Pact Primeval, and could not undo the change they had wrought. The Rift The gods wished to prevent as much of Asmodeus' influence as they could, so they once more made an agreement. They turned to the children of the Creators, and the few that remained in the many planes, asking them for aid in creating a rift in the Void that would all but prevent travel to and from Substance. They agreed to this, and the Old Ones volunteered to become guardians of this seal, along with several of the gods. See Dragons for more information on their role in this. The Late Primordial Era The Forming of the Material Plane Before men, elves, dwarves, orcs, and other sentient humanoid races lived in the Material Plane, it existed as a battleground for the Elemental Princes and other powerful entities of the Planes of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. It was a swirling mass of elemental chaos, the landscape constantly changing in the wake of the arrival or battling of the titans that roamed it. The fledgling humanoid races mostly lived in Paradise or in the Underworld, based on their alignments. Various entities from Paradise decided that they would try to claim the Material Plane from the elementals and mold it into a realm that the humanoids could inhabit. They battled these forces for long counts of time, eventually bringing order to the plane and forming it in the image of their realms. Meanwhile, the fiends in the Underworld began to wonder after the possibility of using these mortals as pawns or sacrifices to increase their own power. The War of Chaos When the divine deities of Paradise had all but finished migrating their peoples to the plane and setting them on the path to civilization, and had sealed away the Elemental Princes, the evil fiends chose to strike. They sabotaged the seals that kept the elemental planes separate from the Material Plane, and let loose the elemental armies on the plane. Meanwhile they struck hard at the mortals and captured or killed many of their number. The war was so great that it tore through the fabric of the planes themselves, and the extradimensional balance of the planes was upset. Eventually, through great valor and aided by treachery and civil war in the ranks of the fiends, order won out and the celestial divines sealed the Material Plane again. However, the legacy of the war was irreversible. The Planar Drift The planes float in 5th-dimensional space, tied to each other by strange rules of magic. This space is known as the Planar Void. However, the War of Chaos broke the bonds between the planes and set them in motion within the Void. On a scale of centuries, the ease of travel between planes grows easier or more difficult much like the coming and going of a tide. When the boundaries between the planes are thinnest, creatures can move almost freely without the use of magic from one to another. At the time of this campaign, the planes are very nearly aligned in this way. Category:Lore Category:All